Shooting ranges and target games have long existed for firearms in a variety of formats. For example, there are simple paper targets or human silhouettes. More elaborate shooting ranges include pop-up targets. All of these targets are designed to sharpen shooting skills, but in a very serious way. The play value of such targets is relatively small. Paintball, on the other hand, is primarily an enjoyment sport. Indeed, paintball has become an extremely popular pastime. The sport is fast paced and competitive, and is considered one of the fastest growing sports in America with more than seven million participants.
The guns used to fire the paintballs are referred to as “markers”. Current paintball markers have evolved into very sophisticated devices, now semi-automatic or fully automatic, each paintball being loaded into firing position automatically. Despite the sophistication of the markers, participants are left to hone their skills using conventional targets on conventional ranges, usually an array of common items arranged in a netted shooting gallery. There have been just a few efforts to make the gallery more convenient.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,251,906 described a revolving turnable 19 for receiving balls 11 falling downwardly after striking the target 12 and dispensing the balls 11 one at a time through an outlet 21 into the tube 18.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,162,057 shows a movable shooting range within a trailer with fans, filters, air conditioning, lightweight, hardened alloy ceilings, floors and side walls. U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,217,026 and 6,338,487, as well as U.S. patent application No. 2001/0008329 describe a game system including a bullet-supply device for feeding back the shot bullet to a pneumatic gun and a communication line connecting the bullet-supply device to the pneumatic gun.
United States Patent Application 20050242507 by Patterson et al. shows a paintball shooting range includes a housing, a plurality of shooting booths each set with a paintball marker and located at a first end of the housing, a control area located at the first end of the housing and shielded with paintball-proof means, and a target area set with targets. The gallery is enclosed in a trailer.
While these prior efforts may make the collection and recycling of paintballs more convenient, none attempt to increase the enjoyment and entertainment value for participants by making the targets themselves more interesting and enjoyable.
Accordingly, it would be greatly advantageous to provide paintball targets that have a distinct enjoyment and entertainment value for participants that strike the targets with a paintball projectile, in each case by a target activation mechanism that indicates that a particular target has in fact been hit.